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Low-Cost Goods Come at a High (Sweatshop) Price
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 Dollar General's famously low prices stretch consumer dollars, but at a high cost. Employees working for suppliers of Dollar General – one of the world's biggest brands at nearly 9,000 stores in 35 states – labor under the lowest health and safety standard and get the lowest pay, even when compared with other sweatshop employers.
Between February and June of this year, China Labor Watch (CLW), a New York-based independent labor rights watchdog, randomly selected four of Dollar General Corporation's (DGC) suppliers in China and conducted investigations.
The investigation revealed that DGC's suppliers in China have the worst labor condition performance compared with all major U.S. retailers:
- Workers do not have access to basic protections from chemical hazard and work injuries.
- During peak seasons, employees work an average of 300 hours per month, including excessive mandatory overtime hours. The accumulative monthly overtime hours alone far exceed the maximum of 432 hours per year allowed by China's labor law.
- The regular hourly salary is about 76 cents (or $130 per month, from which at least $40 will be deducted by the factories for dining fee and dormitory fee; workers actually get paid about $90 per month, or $0.51 per hour). Sometimes overtime hours are not paid at all. In at least one factory under investigation, workers are paid for lying to inspectors.
Dollar General is owned by Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co (KKR), a major private equity firm and can afford to compensate the workers better, CLW notes. Dollar netted nearly $4 billion last year, with the majority of the profits going to KKR. – UCS
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